Posted
by
Zonk
on Tuesday June 13, 2006 @01:36PM
from the now-everyone-has-badge-trouble dept.

1up is reporting that there is unlikely to be a BlizzCon 2006. While last year's event was a success, the company has no plans to make it a yearly event. From the article: "Blizzard has a notorious past when it comes to shipping products on time. Less focus on putting a con together means production time going to the game development of the expansion, making sure they make their targeted release date before the end of 2006. In the end, would you rather go to a con or be cruising the Outlands with your flying mount?"

Blizzard, you must by all means dicth the convention. Obviously the folks who should have developed my flying car wasted time attending Star Trek conventions in the 70's. I hold Paramount fully liable for my lack of a flying car. They seduced multiple generations of engineers away from flying car development with their nasty conventions.

Looks like the sponsors of last years event (http://www.blizzcon.com/) were Intel, NVidia and "Games for Windows". I wonder who walked?

Two "no-go" decision makers for attendees may also have been:

1) Price - $85/120 - yikes!

2) "Will there be wireless internet access for attendees to bring their own computers?
BlizzCon will include a LAN area with over 300+ computers, but there will be no wireless internet access. Attendees cannot bring their own computers into the show, but some of the local hotels offer internet capabilities in their hotel rooms if you choose to bring your own computer."

"Will there be wireless internet access for attendees to bring their own computers? BlizzCon will include a LAN area with over 300+ computers, but there will be no wireless internet access. Attendees cannot bring their own computers into the show, but some of the local hotels offer internet capabilities in their hotel rooms if you choose to bring your own computer."

What kind of convention is this then? The whole point of a gaming convention is gaming. If you can't bring your own computer, you won't be d

I agree. I can meet the devs, play unreleased content, watch costume contests, and see Level 60 Elite Tauren Chieftan play any day of the week. I'd rather pay $85 + airfare + hotel to lug my computer half way across the country to play multiplayer StarCraft and WarCraft with a bunch of other people. I mean, it's not like I can't do that from home via Battle.net or anything.

From what you said right there, unless this is a 5 or 7 day event, there is no chance in hell I would pay the airfare and for a hotel for the con, much less pay the admission and deal with stupid people.

They've lost so many customers to poor server stability that they know a con isnt going to bring any market share back. An expansion pack will......if they can increase their service stability in the mean time.

They're still gaining more customers than they are losing. Even most of the lost customers come back. Server stability is important, but once you get a taste of the wowcrack, it's hard to leave. I've left twice. I'm only back on a friend's account occassionally. I refuse to fire my account back up until they fix PVP so that it's based on skill and not completely on time. Working full time and having a family > high warlord.

I left the game awhile after hitting 60. Mostly because I couldn't commit the time to raiding and found the majority of end game activities to be dull, repetitive time sinks. At the time I was pretty sure I'd come back for Burning Crusade, now I'm not so sure. A couple of the questions on my mind:1. How will they balance the expansion between epic equipped raiding characters and blue wearing non-raiders? Itemization causes a huge disparity in power between level 60 characters.2. How well will their server a

1. Not that big of an issue. Some of the low 60 stuff might be very simple for AQ40 and Naxx geared raiders. But those are the type of people that are going to try that stuff maybe once, on their power grind up to 70, to get into the same type of end game material that they currently enjoy.People that have recently hit 60, or don't have high end raiding gear will possibly take their time going through the low 60 stuff, increasing their gear to match what the the previous top tier raiders had at 60, and by t

I agree completely. Why all the emphasis on the Warcraft Universe when there's so much devotion worldwide to the Starcraft one? Not that it matters, as they'd just ruin it by turning it into a crapp 3D RTS like the did with Warcraft III.

"Less focus on putting a con together means production time going to the game development of the expansion, making sure they make their targeted release date before the end of 2006. In the end, would you rather go to a con or be cruising the Outlands with your flying mount?"

Soo.... the guys who design and code the game are the same ones who plan the Blizzcon??

Developer panels. They had the developers spend time talking with people at the con and announcing upcoming content. So while I doubt the developers were actively planning the convention (that'd be marketing's job), they were still involved with the con itself and preparing material for it. Which would, indeed, be time not spent developing the game.

Everquest has held conventions for years at about an annual rate. Sony has never reached the population or subscriber base that WoW has and yet they were able to hold "Fan Faires" for their players quite often. The players loved it and it brought the community even closer together for those that could make the events. Sponsors helped out, but it wasn't about making money. It was about creating more interest in the already addictive game. In other words, nothing BAD comes out of holding one of these.
If the

Why would they host another con in October of this year? To announce a second expansion, before the first is even out? Blizzard spent quite a bit of money on Blizzcon 2005 and they are going to wait till they have something to sell us. My guess is that the second Blizzcon will be in April or May of next year and continue annually at that point. Once they have the first exp pack under their belt I'm sure they will be on track to release one just in time for Christmas annually.

We won't actually be attending any of the events, cause we'd pull too much aggro if we did. And we can't actually talk to people, cause we'd be too busy getting two-shotted by priests, hunters, warlocks, shamans, rogues, druids, paladins, and other mages. We'll talk to the warriors though -- as long as they don't talk to us first.